Posts by HB

20

Church of England Buildings' Significant History

by FlyingHighNow in

jw
friends

i was raised episcopalian.

thus i am quite fascinated with my roots in the church of england, who in turn has its roots in the roman catholic church.

many of the church buildings and cathedrals that exist in england today date back to the first millenium after christ and thus were roman catholic at the time they were built.

HB

Hi FHN,

You would probably like the local Parish Church (St Mary the Virgin, Bramshott) in my village which has lots of history. The original chancel was built in 1220 as a private chapel for the Lord of the Manor who lived next door.

alt

In the Doomsday Book of the 11th century (compiled for William the Conqueror), Bramshott was known as Brembesete, (Seat of the Brembe family) but the Church was yet to be built at the time.

Over the centuries, the nave, the transepts, a belfry (yes, now complete with bats!) and a spire were added. The roof is timbered and dates from the 15th century. The North and South Aisles are supported by large round pillars and have graceful arches.

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There is a pretty Lychgate

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The church is situated in a hamlet surrounded by narrow leafy lanes. These lanes are very picturesque as they are sunken below the level of the surrounding fields by up to about 10 feet, due to centuries of wagon and coach wheels creating deep tracks before they were tarmaced.

Nearby, wedged between three lanes in the middle of a triangular 'roundabout' is a cottage built in the shape of a coffin, complete with skulls and gargoyles. It was the home of Boris Karloff (Frankenstein's Monster) during his last years. He left a legacy to Bramshott Church which enabled the six bells dating from 1784 to be rehung in 1989. I sometimes feel sorry for the people who live in surrounding cottages as they can never have a quiet lie-in on a Sunday morning as the bells are rung regularly! I once had a go at bellringing but it is very difficult to do well.

The stained glass East Window is a tribute to the Canadian troops stationed nearby during both world wars and the kneelers all depict Canadian flowers and the flag. The beautiful carved wooden canopy over the priest's stall depicts beavers.

Outside is the largest cemetary in Hampshire. It has a separate section which contains 318 graves of Canadian soldiers who died of the flu after the first world war. Most of the graves show the Maple leaf although a few have the Jewish Star of David.

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There are 95 more WW1 Canadian soldiers buried in the Catholic Church in a nearby village.

I only go to the Church once a year for Remembrance Service (commemorating those who died in the wars) and it is especially moving that when we gather round the war memorial outside to lay poppy wreaths, a local lady brings along a mule decorated with red poppies on his bridle to commemorate all the animals that have died as a result of war.

The oldest part of the graveyard has lots of very old leaning crosses and ancient tombstones covered in moss and ivy and looks like the set of a spooky film. Bramshott is reputed to be one of the most haunted villages in Britain but that's another story.

How old are the oldest Churches in the USA, and what is the average age of the majority of small-town churches?

Heather

(PS Hope the pictures appear as this is my first attempt at adding any!)

51

What was the most stupid word in Dub literature or Kingdom Melodies???

by Alpaca in

jw
friends

i remember a wt with the word "happifying".

now that's really stupid!!

!.

HB

Not sure if my comments as a non JW who has never been to a Kingdom Hall will be of any interest on this subject, but looking in from the outside to the JW world is like finding yourself in a Terry Pratchett Discworld novel where words mean something different and are used in very odd ways.

The phrase I find the most weird and unearthly is "faithful and discreet slave". At first I thought it referred to individual JWs who were expected to be slaves to the masters at the top.

I think of "faithful" in terms of marriage or dogs, and apart from in those contexts it doesn't come up much in everyday language in the 21st century. Loyalty is the modern version in terms of brands, supermarkets and supporters of football teams.
I previously understood the word "discreet" when used in connection to slaves or servants as being prepared to be dishonest, something like keeping one's mouth shut about the master's extra-marital affairs or being trusted not to blab that he was an drunkard etc.
"Slave" has huge negative connotations in the modern world and I couldn't fathom why the WTS would assocate themselves with a now repugnant practise.

Understanding posts on this board has required learning much new vocabulary and many abbreviations for me. When I first came to JWD (18th of March 08, I remember the date as it was my birthday!), I posted my question after only spending a couple of minutes establishing that it was not a pro-JW site. At that point I had virtually no knowledge of the new language I was about to learn.

In my third post I used the word "Church" in connection with the Watch Tower Society , which shows the depth of my naivety. However I think I was broadly representative of most in the wider community at least in the UK, who know nothing about JWs other than that you are best to avoid opeining the door to them. I remember feeling proud in my first post that at least I had found out that JWs didn't have vicars or priest but the correct term was "elders". It took me a while to learn to say "Study Conductor" instead of JW teacher and was stumped for a while as to how I should describe the equivalent of a Church Service held in a Kingdom Hall.

My first post elicited very helpful replies one of which was from WTWizard. The advice was good but he used words like Judicial Committee and hounding sessions, field circus and boasting sessions.Then poster StAnn added her comment to WTWizard as follows:

WTW, since the OP is not an ex-JW and is new to the board, you may wish to redo your post without using the jargon that makes so much sense to the rest of us but would be completely confusing to an outsider. You have good points. I'm just afraid that terms like "boasting session" may completely confuse the OP and your points will be missed.

She was so right about confusion, (although at first, not being a regular forum contributor, I didn't even know what an OP was, (apart from overhead projector) and she then addressed her next comments to me as 'OP', so that was confusing too!).

The biggest problem was working out which words were genuine JW language and which were JWD people being satirical or sarcastic. I realised "Filthful and Disgraceful Slave Bugger" was presumably not a phrase used in worship, but at the time didn't have a clue what it referred to. I assumed a 'boasting session' was where people got up in the 'Church' to boast about how many people they had managed to convert or something like that. I had to ask in a PM what 'Borg' meant. I still don't know when it is correct to use "The Organisation" and when to use "The Society" (or are they interchangeable?).

I feel very much an outsider here on JWD, although I am fascinated in a curious way by the whole world of JWs and every few days find myself staying up far too late to check in to see what's being discussed. I am the groupie and you are all the celebs. I don't watch soap operas on TV but it is the equivalent for me!

I am not just being voyeuristic as I do have a genuine reason to learn about the WTS ....I am still trying to help my friend out of the cult and there is so much good advice and insight in your posts. I can learn about the false doctirnes on other sites, but on JWD I can learn what it feels like inside the mind of a JW, albeit from exJWS. I hope you don't mind me being here.

Heather

42

Are Believers Truly Humble?

by serotonin_wraith in

if you are non religious, do you still feel those with religion show a higher level of humility than others in society?.

on the face of it, i feel most would answer in the affirmative.. but breaking it down, i find it harder and harder to accept.

in fact, i'd call it the opposite of humility.

HB

I am not a Christian but was thinking about this subject at Easter when I read that the Pope washed the feet of 12 priests on Holy Thursday. During a service in a Cathedral in Rome, he poured water from a jug over the priests' feet and dried them. The Priests sat on a raised platform so the pope didn't have to bend down (he is 79).

I know this is supposed to be a symbolic act and is a centuries old tradition, following Jesus' example, but to me the symbolism is meaningless. The Pope could demonstrate his humility a lot more usefully and effectively if instead he worked in a homeless shelter for a week or volunteered in a disaster area. Or if he really has to wash feet, then he should do so for victims of sex abuse by priests. That would involve humility.

Mother Theresa was my idea of a humble Christian, not perfectly humble but the nearest you could get.

PS I bet those twelve priests all had a shower that Thursday morning, manicured their toe-nails and wore clean socks. Maybe I have a wicked sense of humour but I would love it if one of the priests had turned up for the Papal ceremony with really dirty smelly feet, grimy toe-nails and sweaty socks! I am not saying the pope would not wash unclean feet but nevertheless I wouldn't rate the promotion chances of any priest that dared to do it.

68

The Butchering of the English Language.

by Low-Key Lysmith in

i am disturbed by the recent trend in the media in america that encourages the butchering of our english language.. i'm talking about examples of film titles like "she hate me", "how she move", & "baby mama".

does it really take that much effort to add an "s" to the end of a word?

now, before i am decried as a racist, please note that nowhere in any of my statements have i isolated any particular race.

HB

My two penn'orth........

I'm not fussed about correct English on internet forums such as JWD; providing people make their points clearly understood, grammar, spelling and punctuation are not too important. However, the writing styles that people use on a forum are like the clothes they wear in public, they give an instant impression of the writer. We are constantly judging each other albeit on a sub-conscious level, and people get to know each other on a forum not just by what is 'said', but by the way it is 'said'.

Unfortunately it is more difficult to respect the intelligence of a poster who is discussing their views on a profound doctrinal issue and making very clever and well thought out points if they also made frequent and repeated basic spelling and grammatical mistakes. This is human nature even if it's wrong.

But on the other hand, on the more personal threads, the aim is to find a conversational tone and deviations from standard English make the writers seem more real and human.

(I'm trying to write in a neutral tone here!)

In the wider world, I don't worry if friends make mistakes in emails but I do get irritated by lazy or bad mistakes in more formal correspondence such as in newspapers (e.g. "The rise in oil prices effected the stock market"), or on public signs (e.g. "Banana's half price today").

Some posts mention the role of education in teaching English. A couple of years ago I was helping my then 16 year old niece (who is an average student) with her English literature homework . I looked through her folder and in the previous essay she was required to critically analyse a poem and I was amazed to see she had written in mobile phone text style. I still remember the worst sentence: " the poet is tryng 2 xplain how it wd b beta 2 b dead than btray his frend".

The teacher had marked this essay with an A grade and made only a brief comment something like " Proper English please" but my niece said that most of the pupils wrote like that and the teachers had more or less given up. I was shocked but I can see a future where this could become the norm unless society makes an effort to ensure it doesn't. Shakespeare, Jane Austen et al would turn in their graves ( .....wher4 R U Romeo?)

I asked myself why I am irritated? I think its because English is one of the truly great world languages but it is vulnerable and constantly under attack from many sources, so I feel protective of it. We shouldn't be complacent about the position of English. It may seem improbable at present, but If it is weakened and therefore becomes less versatile, history shows it could over time go the way of many other languages which have risen and fallen like empires. The Romans would never have believed that Latin would die out. Admittedly English is the language of the internet, which gives it status, but some experts predict that the predominance of English may eventually wane and Chinese will become the most important world language.

I am all for language evolving, in fact we can't stop it from doing so. It is a tool and we should encourage any new ways of using grammar that enhance the language and sharpen its power but discourage those that blunt it and degrade it. Laziness with grammar as in the examples quoted by LowKey Lysmith would be serious if they became wide-spread because they make the language less expressive and less versatile. When you take away a verb ending, you take away it's tense which makes its sense ambiguous.

Waves of mass immigration usually enrich a language for the better by adding new vocabulary. Colloquial or 'street' language add richness to everyday conversations but the problem comes when the colloquial permeates into formal written English.

The measure of a great language is whether writers can use it express an infinitely wide range of ideas and emotions. Pidgin English developed centuries ago and is now in everyday use in some cultures. However although it is perfectly good for day to day use, the language is not rich enough as a medium to create great literature. (I would be interested to know if any works of literary merit have been created in Creole?)

Unfortunately language purists are usually seen as pedants. There is an Apostrophe Protection Society which you can join if you are serious about punctuation. (True!)

Authoress Lynne Truss illustrates the importance of punctuation with the story of an irate panda who walks into a cafe, orders a sandwich, eats it, draws a gun and fires two shots into the air, then goes out of the door. The waiter finds the explanation for this erratic behaviour in a wildlife book which has the following badly punctuated entry:

Panda:
Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves.

Those who profess not to care about language should try writing a few sentences without punctuation and read them back.

Heather

PS. I wonder if the JWD word 'dub' will one day enter the English dictionary!

PPS. Leolaia, I was interested in the historical information about the verb 'to be'. I have elderly friends in rural Devon who still use present indicative 'be' with all personal pronouns.

3

Death for Islamic apostates

by HB in

i know this board is focused on jw issues, but one or two people may be interested in an article on the bbc website, which discusses the attitudes to apostacy in the islamic religion.

here is a quick overview:.

the penalty for leaving islam or converting to another religion is death.

HB

I know this board is focused on JW issues, but one or two people may be interested in an article on the BBC website, which discusses the attitudes to apostacy in the Islamic religion.

Here is a quick overview:
The penalty for leaving Islam or converting to another religion is death. It may have been the reason why a British teacher who converted from Islam was killed in Somalia last week.

The Quran does not in fact say anything about punishing apostates, and some academics are now teaching that the classical law of apostasy in Islam is wrong and based on a misunderstanding of the original sources. Nevertheless, apparently of over a third of young British Muslims believe that the death penalty should apply for apostasy.

If you want to read the article see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7355515.stm

Disfellowshipping in the JW religion is evil and abhorrent but at least it is not quite as final as death. However at least progressive Islamist academics can have open public discussions with traditional dogmatists about attitudes towards apostasy, so they are in this respect at least, more advanced than the WTS!

40

Your JW Relatives Have 2 Personalities - Cult & Authentic- See the Change

by flipper in

jw
friends

in steve hassan's book, " combatting cult mind control" - one of the points that assisted me the most is understanding that all cult members have a " cult " personality which turns on when defending their faith, and they have an authentic, non - cult personality they were born with- the personality they had before being programmed by the jehovah's witnesses or any other " cult".

how is this dual cult/ authentic personality manifest ?

hassan mentions in his book that, " one moment the person is speaking cultic jargon with a hostile or elitist know-it-all attitude .

HB

I have a friend who is a Police Officer. Off duty, he is mild mannered, quiet and a warm, caring individual with a smiley face. But each day at work, he is a different person. Sometimes he instantly switches from one personality to the other before my eyes, even without his uniform on. We were in a pub one evening recently where a fight developed. My friend leaped up, superman-like, and took control. He dealt with the situation in a professional manner, his eyes were focused and he seemed a stranger to those of us who he was laughing with a few moments before. His normally soft voice was hard-edged and he spoke to us his friends in an authoritative voice as he ordered us to move away.

When I mentioned afterwards how different he seemed, he said "It's just the training".

But then he said something that made me think. He said the stress that is caused by living in a dual personality can be overwhelming and unless you find ways of coping with it, you crack up.

We discussed it at length and he pointed out that several professions such as in the military, and even to an extent school teachers, clergy and politicians have the same problem of having to be two distict personalities on a regular basis. He pointed out that comedy actors, circus clowns and stand-up comedians are often the most miserable people behind the mask they put on in public

So perhaps the effects of living with a dual personality are connected to why there is so much depression and mental ill-health amongst JWs? The police are trained to cope with their stressful lives, but the WT Org is hardly going to train their members to cope with the effects of being part of a cult !!!!

17

I grew up in a...

by mahler in

...cult, a cult, an f***ing cult!!!!

(had to get that out of my system (no-pun intended)

i've been visiting this site for a week or so and it just hit me.

HB

I am sure ex JWs on this board will help you as much as they have helped me. I am in a similar but not identical situation to yours as I am trying to get a friend out of being baptised into this cult.

I have never been a JW, but advice from several kindly folk here and from reading lots of threads has given me confidence as well as teaching me a lot. Individuals sent me post messages which helped a great deal. I learnt about all the lies, the inconsistencies and the changes in doctrine involved in the JW cult. There is a huge amount to learn and I'm still in the process but it is fascinating so it doesn't feel like hard work. In correspondence with others, I have gradually evolved a strategy to help my friend.

Not sure if the plan will be of any help to you, as our circumstances are different, but here it is:

1. I started by deliberately engineering ways and means to spend more time with my friend socially and used every opportunity to ensure that she knows I respect her and care about her as a person more than about her beliefs. This may not be necessary if you are already close to your brother.

2. The clichés are true that knowledge is power and one should know as much as possible about one's 'opponent' so I set about learning how a JW mind works which is where this board was invaluable. Other websites list ways to disprove JW beliefs, but I realised that dealing with closed minds, you need more than just facts and figures, you need psychology.

3. I compiled a list and then thought hard about which area would be most effective to begin with. This decision will be different for you, as each individual is different, and also depends to some extent whether you wish to help your brother preserve a spiritual faith or to persuade him their is no supernatural being.

I considered 10 areas as follows :

(a) Mis-translations of the scriptures.

(b) Mis-interpretations of doctrine

(c) Ethical issues such as blood

(d) Doctrinal U turns and flip-flops

(e) Skeletons in the Watchtower cupboard, eg protection of paedophiles.

(f) Origins of the cult and its murky early history.

(g) The illogicalities and impossibility of a Paradise earth.

(h) Behaviour control - eg dictating dress style and what is acceptable in the bedroom, disciplinary procedures and shunning etc

(i) Information and thought control - not allowing access any other ideas but those of the WT and controlling what questions can be asked.

(j) Life-style - eg how much time is required to attend meetings, study, and go out knocking on doors. Not being able to celebrate birthdays, Christmas and so on.

4. Having considered my friend's character carefully, I decided which order to tackle the above list. I think that's the crucial point as if you start off on something that goes over your brother's head or does not relate to his personal experience, you may push him further away.

I was not completely honest in that I did not tell my friend that I had been studying apostate material. I did not want to try and teach her directly what I had learned, I simply showed an apparently naive but genuine interest in why she believed what she believed and kept asking leading questions. Most of these she found she could not answer. She would go back to her study conductor and then return to me with the standard JW answer which I knew was coming, and therefore I had my ammunition at the ready.

I decided drip feeding one thought at a time is far better than crowding her head with too many ideas at once. My 'battle' is still ongoing; it's going to be a slow process and I am not vastly optimistic, but I won't give up.

In your case it may be that you would just need to say you were having trouble understanding a particular point and ask your brother to explain it to you to initiate a conversation, rather than confronting him.

My friend is a feisty young 20 year old, not academic, and does not have a particularly questioning mind, but has had a very troubled childhood. I realised that doctrinal and ethical issues would not interest her much. So I started on issues that affect her as an individual. She has always been a bit of a rebel and I began with thought and behaviour control. We have talked about lifestyle but she hasn't yet been told everything that the JWs will require her to give up after baptism. At the present they are "love-bombing" her.

There are some good signs, my friend is still happy to talk to me in spite of her study conductor telling her I am an agent of Satan and she should keep away.

I wish you success!

3

The chemistry of Hell

by HB in

as i am a relative newcomer, i don't know what has been posted before so i apologise if you've already seen this....... .

hell explained by a chemistry student.

the following is an actual question given on a university ofwashington chemistry mid term.. .

HB

As I am a relative newcomer, I don't know what has been posted before so I apologise if you've already seen this......

HELL EXPLAINED BY A CHEMISTRY STUDENT

The following is an actual question given on a University of

Washington chemistry mid term.

The answer by one student was so "profound" that the professor shared it with colleagues, via the Internet, which is, of course, why we now have the pleasure of enjoying it as well :

Bonus Question: Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs heat)?

Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law (gas cools when it expands and heats when it is compressed) or some variant.

One student, however, wrote the following:

First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So we need to know the rate at which souls are moving into Hell and the rate at which they are leaving.

I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving. As for how many souls are entering Hell, let's look at the different religions that exist in the world today.

Most of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell. Since there is more than one of these religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all souls go to Hell. With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the

number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially. Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume in Hell because Boyle's Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the volume of Hell has to expand proportionately as souls are added.

This gives two possibilities:

1. If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until all Hell breaks loose.

2. If Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over.

So which is it?

If we accept the postulate given to me by Teresa during my Freshman year that, "It will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you," and
take into account the fact that I slept with her last night, then number two must be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic and has already frozen over.

The corollary of this theory is that since Hell has frozen over, it follows that it is not accepting any more souls and is therefore, extinct......leaving only Heaven, thereby proving the existence of a divine being which explains why, last night, Teresa kept shouting "Oh my God."

THIS STUDENT RECEIVED AN A+.

18

10 Things that Aggravated an Ex-Witness

by nbernat in

you guys probably have seen these but try to add on more!

10 things that can aggravate a witness.

1. cell phones ringing during the meeting: you're at a congregation meeting and everyone important to you is at that meeting too.

HB

For someone like me who has never been in a Kingdom Hall and never wants to but is curious to know what actually goes on in there, this list tells me more than a page of serious description could. Maybe that was not your purpose, but thanks for the education!

16

My Diagnosis and long term Prognosis ..............

by nomoreguilt in

jw
friends

yes, i have what is called c.r.s.

it has been coming on rather slowly but still it is quite rapidly moving on.

it started a few years ago, i am 58 , and up until a few months ago hadn't seemed too serious.

HB

Being seroius for a moment.......

NMG....from what you said to Ninja, do I take it that "piss off" is not in regular current usage in the US?

Just curious.

You're right that British humour is quite different to American style fun, we like irony, but it doesn't seem to go down so easily in the US of A,

There's only on thing Brits love better than having a laugh at the Yanks which is poking fun at the Frogs (French).... no offence intended!

I am sure the feeling is mutual,

Do some Americans really believe in the charicature of the eccentric stiff upper lipped englishman in his tweed jacket speaking in a clipped accent and using phrases such as "Jolly good show!" (This gent obviously lives in an oak-beamed mansion or a black and white tudor cottage).

Some people* over here genuinely do think all Americans are loud, brash, impatient and ignorant, carry guns, drive ridiculously large cars, don't understand queuing and eat too much!

*(not me I hasten to add before you send the heavy mob round!)